Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1887-12-21
NO. H..
INTELLIGENCE OF ANTS.
Sir John Lubbock Investigates the Question
of Their Affections.

of Their Affections.
Sir John Lubbock delivered another
lecture on "Ants' in London recently.
The lecturer said that ants were of
much interest to the human race, be-
cause they reproduced in so many re-
spects the conditions of our own lives.
When we considered their habits, their
social organization, their large COM
munities their roadways, their posses
sion of domestic servants, and some-.
times, he was sorry to say, of slaves, it
must be admitted that they had fair
claim to rank in intelligence next to
man. 1t was difficult to determine
whether ants could be said to have any
actual affection for one another. He
related a number of experiments he
had conducted to ascertain the truth
in this respect. An ant which had in
jured her legs was fed and was carried
by her companions. Another ant that
had injured her antenn8 in coming out
of chrysalis, being found by an ant of
another nest, was attacked, and it was
with difficulty that the lecturer rescued
her; but being afterward found by an ant
belonging to the same nest, this ant,
after carefully examining her unfortu-
nate companion, took her up in her
mouth and carried her back to her
nest. Nobody had ever yet seen quar-
rel between two ants of the same nest.
In one of his nests he had number of
xxyhi iO1 fO hn IF
years, They gradually diminished in
number and at last only two remained.
These two lived together for two years
and then died within a week of one
another. There appeared to be no ex-
ternal cause for this, and he was dis
posed to think that the survivor felt the
shock of her companions death.
Sir John said that he had now a
queen-ant, which had lived in one of
his nests ever since 1874. She was
even then full-grown, and must, there
fore be nearly fourteen years old. She
was. he believ ed, the oldest insect on
record, and though he regretted to say
that she was not so active as formerly,
and was now little stiff in the joints,
still, as far as he was able to observe,
she was in perfect health, and he had
every hope that he would continue to
enjoy the pleasure of her society for
some time. He had tried experiments
to see if ants were capable of mutual
recognition. He kept ants of the same
nest apart for year and half, and on
putting them together again he found
that there was mutual recognition. He
was afraid great many men forgot
their friends in much less time. Desir-
Gus to know by what signal, password
or other means ants made their recogni-
ton, he reduced one set to insensibility.
Chloroform not answering the purpose.
he determined to make them drink. He
found that the only way to make an
ant drunk was not by enticing her to
take poisonous spirit, but by putting
her into whisky. He then made the
sober ants approach the drunken ants.
At first the former did not seem to
know how to deal with the latter. At
last one of the sober ants took up one
of the drunkards belonging to different
nest, looked at it, walked slowly to the
end of the table and dropped her into
some water that was there. The
stranger ants were all taken and
thrown into the water, while the ants
belonging to the same nest were car
ried back, where he had no doubt they
soon recovered from the effects of the
drink. This experiment proved that
ants did not recognize one another by
any password, but it also proved that
their faculty of recognition was unerr-
ing. The lecturer proceeded to sketch
the senses and moral qualities of ants,
and gave numerous illustrations of their
affection among themselves, their
hostility toward ants belonging to
other nests, and their powers of in
tercommunication.- -Lo uiSUalle Courier
Journal.
-.-E LnDCE CTAOTEn